South Africa’s coronavirus test positivity rate remains below 5% and medical experts say this indicates that any third wave of the virus has not yet arrived.
The test positivity rate in the Northern Cape, however, remains high at around 10%. This comes amid concerns about a possible spread of COVID-19 as people embark on the Easter breaks later this week.
More than 52 000 people have died from COVID-19 in South Africa.
The CSIR’s Dr Ridhwan Suliman says there are some concerns about the situation in the Northern Cape.
“Certain provinces have ticked upwards slightly in terms of the test positivity. Northern Cape has just moved over 10% at the moment, triggered by the recent outbreak. So, that needs to just be monitored and make sure we get over that. Other provinces including Free State, North West, and Mpumalanga are close to the 10% level.”
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Scientific scenarios on a possible third wave in SA:
New variant in third wave not likely
On Thursday, Epidemiologist Professor Salim Abdool Karim says South Africa is not likely to have a new variant of COVID-19 during the third wave of infections.
Karim says despite the high level of uncertainty in the country, a new variant of COVID-19 does not seem possible.
“You get re-infection with these new variants. Also with vaccine immunity, they are somewhat compromised. The extent to which this happens is not clear but it seems to reduce the utilisation capacity of the vaccine. There’s a lot of uncertainty in this. I am optimistic that you know we may not see a new variant but if we do, then we need to be even more on our guard in terms of reducing risk.”
South Africa warned of a possible third wave of COVID-19:
Vaccination concerns
However, vaccination has been a course of concern. Deputy Health Minister Joe Phaahla said due to the lack of available vaccines, the government will not achieve its target of vaccinating 1.5 million healthcare workers by April.
The country also plans to vaccinate 14 million citizens by the end of 2021.
Professor Adrian Puren of the NICD said if the third wave hits in June, as currently predicted, the country would have not vaccinated enough people to prevent the virus from spreading rapidly.
“We won’t reach herd immunity, as you know that magic number is 67%. We are nowhere close to that and I think it was predicted that we would have 1 million in the first phase. So, we will really have to scale up quite dramatically to really protect the healthcare workers.”
SA’s vaccination process under spotlight:
